Love, life and thoughts. Food for the soul.

“Love becomes a habit” True/false?

Love is undefinable. We all have our bittersweet experiences, our sour moments and sweet moments. We all have our own definitions of this inexpressible emotion. The good, the bad, the odd and the perfect. I’ve heard many people term love as a habit. Is it that some of us tend to overlook the depth of the emotion and on the sidelines, love appears to be a habit? Well, not love exactly, but the ‘person’ we love. Are we attached to them because we are habituated to them or are we habituated to them so we love them?

I can only speak for myself when I say, its definitely not a habit! The person you love cannot be compared to your “biting the nails” habit or “munching nosily” habit. Yes,you can become habituated to a person’s “habits”, you can merge your routine with theirs, you can change some of your own habits too, get accustomed to the sounds of snoring, tolerate your extra finicky partner and their obsessive compulsive cleaning disorders, learn to ignore the shoes lying around in the room or the wet towel lying on your pillow, but you can’t reduce the entire person to just a habit. To me, that is wrong. Some people say, “I can’t leave her, she is like a habit. I don’t really love her, but I think Im used to her morning calls, her texts and the lovely snacks that she drops by”, others say “ Im used to him. Sort of like, habituated to him being there for me. We spend Saturday nights together. Why? Because, thats what we do on saturday nights?”

Maybe, this is the reason for most breakups and divorces. We forget to value to each other, take each other for granted and the significant other becomes just a part of your schedule, not a necessity. He/She is no longer the one that sparks up your life, sends butterflies through your stomach and makes you shine in their light. Marriages tend to grow unsatisfactory, couples breakup etcetera and you think, if it was a routine, why are they so “heartbroken? “ Well, obviously because the schedule has been amended, there is no Romeo in your story and Juliet’s runaway to another land where the men can still give her goosebumps with their touch.

When we grow to love a person, we overlook the imperfections, because we “love” that person for who she/he is. They don’t replace an activity or a time slot in your life, they make your activity or period in life worthwhile. They shouldn’t be objectified for purpose. This is so wrong, in so many levels. If we love someone, everything we do with our significant other is worthwhile. You develop habits “for” them, “with” them, “around” them. Not vice versa. Keeping that spark alive would solve so many issues in our lives. Making time for each other, not letting the relationship go bland. Not becoming or allowing to become just a mere habit can actually salvage something that is on the verge of dismissal. It’s a harsh thought, even to ruminate about a person being in your life because YOU are too scared to let go of a habit, not the person is petrifying enough. As long as purpose is served, it wouldn’t matter who is fulfilling the purpose. Shallow I’d say!

People cannot be a habit in our lives. We don’t stop missing our family, just because we outgrew the habit of living together, we miss them because we genuinely love them, value them and without them our lives would be incomplete, because they touch our lives in various ways, that leave us changed, admired and loved. For the same reasons, our partners are also people who has contributed to making us better people, even in the tiniest possible way, shared the joys of the good times and divided the sorrows of the bad and has been beside us come storm or hail. Thus, diminishing their importance in our lives and tagging them as a habit is utter gibberish! If you ever truly loved a person, they will always remain the one you loved and still love because they add worth to your life, not because they’ve become this cold obligatory essence that you’re day would be incomplete without . I don’t see how they would turn overtime to become a habit. People are NOT commodities, they either hold importance or they don’t. There is no middle ground. Unless of course you are taking advantage of one’s humility and love and being a selfish prick!

I’d come to realise the irony of humanity. The truth being, very less of it is left! We value commodities and utilise people, we pay for fashion while we trash love, we buy luxury while we mince emotions with our gnarled words and throw them out to perish in poverty of love, nowadays we commit ourselves to our pets more than our beloveds.

12 comments

Sometimes habits are nice; they keep us organized and feeling like we have things under control. So love becoming a habit maybe isn’t such a bad thing. When something becomes a habit, I don’t think it’s important is diminished but that it’s actually accentuated. Does that make sense? But I totally agree that we shouldn’t take our loved ones for granted.

I get what you are saying, I think you missed my point though Zoe (if you don’t mind me calling that on the blog). People treat each other as habits these days, for instance, I don’t really like your blog anymore but I still comment on it, because I am habituated to it not because I have enjoyed the read. Replace blog with your partner and comment with love.. see? I understand your point though, and yes, its absolutely wonderful (even though in the beginning it is odd) to make a habit of making tea for your partner even if you don’t drink tea yourself, waiting for him to be back to have dinner together etcetera type habits, those habits are nice surely🙂

Recently I was talking with few of my girl friends about similar topic. One of my girlfriends told me that her mum has been receiving flower from her dad every Friday for last 52 years. He has never missed it no matter what. (I wish that too)

We all thought it was so romantic and thoughtful of him to do that but guess what. Her mum is so used to getting those flowers that she doesn’t appreciate it as much as we think she should. She kind of knows that flower will arrive every Friday so it was just another Friday for her, nothing special. It was my friend’s words and I am sure she knows her mum well.

So I think we need to appreciate our loved one and acknowledge even small things they do for us otherwise we will just make it a habit and forget to appreciate.